A John Waters Christmas

Gift guide

A John Waters Christmas

(New Line)

Like his movies, John Waters' Christmas album is a good-natured distillation of perverted novelty and heretical irreverence. Little Cindy's "Happy Birthday Jesus (A Child's Prayer)" is a child-exploiting, reason-for-the-season tome recast as side-splitting oddity. An afternoon at Wal-Mart will put you in the mood for Rudolph & Gang's acerbic "Here Comes Fatty Claus," while Akim & the Teddy Vann Production Company's "Santa Claus Is a Black Man" warms the cockles with its middling yet earnest execution.

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